


Captain's Favour, Devil's Due

by Diomedes



Category: Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Aftermath, Alpha Steve Rogers, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst, Consent Issues, Dark, Everyone's a Good Bro, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Omega Tony Stark, Past Abuse, Soul Bond, Steve Rogers Is a Good Bro, Tony Stark Has Issues, Trope Subversion/Inversion, holy shit what happened to tony?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-08-20 00:40:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20218933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diomedes/pseuds/Diomedes
Summary: Tony went missing for five months. He came back smelling like the sea.The bloodstain was a crimson Rorscach test; you could see whatever you wanted in it.





	1. The Returned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BEFORE YOU READ: Dark is not a joke tag. Nothing is described graphically and is mostly alluded to in flashback but it's unpleasant. A full list of content cautions can be found in the endnotes. This constitutes your warning.

Tony came back smelling like the sea.  
  
Steve waited forty agonizing minutes before he used his override codes to enter the locked suite. Tony was stepping out of the shower, skin pink from hot water and scrubbing, but intact, whole, _alive_. Steve just crossed the room and hugged him tight, buried his nose in Tony’s still dripping hair and inhaled, hunting for the familiar scent he once knew so well. That mix of metal shavings, ionized air, and _Tony_. He couldn’t find it. Not under the soft water, the shampoo, the body wash, the generic scent of exhaustion and relief.  
  
Instead he found the ocean: endless and clear. Pleasant enough, but nothing like Steve remembered.  
  
That’s when he saw the bite: the blush pink of a bondmark at the crux of neck and shoulder, years old. Tony’s throat had been bare when he left.  
  
(Steve had asked gently, twice. Tony had turned him down; once gently, once not.)  
  
Tony didn’t meet his eyes. “Yeah, so about that.”  
  
Steve let go.  
  
————————————

Tony had been missing for five months before Bucky and Logan brought him back.  
  
The dimensional veil had rules. Only people who were dead on the other side could cross it. Tony hadn’t known that when he strolled through but the portal spat back the Avengers’ rescue parties, one by one. Steve couldn’t make it across. Neither could Natasha, Rhodes, Carol, Thor, Janet, Peter, Bruce, or Stephen. At first it was a comfort: knowing that wherever Tony was he had versions of the Avengers with him. Later Steve would wonder if that wasn’t the worst part.  
  
After four months of Richards and Strange running experiments, Peter had disappeared through the veil and wasn’t kicked back. He reappeared two minutes and forty-three seconds later in central Philadelphia. He insisted he’d been on the other side for two and a half days.  
  
“Time dilation and spacial displacement,” Reed tried to explain. “Spacetime is stretching at different rates along different axes. We don’t have enough data, all our monitoring equipment disintegrated across the membrane. Maybe if we…”  
  
Strange had been more accessible. “Stark’s armour would have disintegrated when he walked through. By our clock he’s been missing for five months,” a pause, “for him it’s been closer to three and a half years.”  
  
Something in Steve stuttered.  
  
“I never made it through the portal before,” Peter said, voice shaking, “why now?”  
  
The veil shimmered ominously.  
  
Somewhere on the other side, Peter Parker had died.  
  
———————————————

The rescue party comprised Bucky and Logan. Both dead or non-existent on the other side, both willing to step into the unknown.  
  
“I’ll bring him back,” Bucky promised. He knew how much Steve longed to be going himself. Logan just huffed.  
  
No one was fast enough to stop Peter running across the veil after them.  
  
All three reappeared fourteen hours later in the Mojave desert. They had Tony with them.  
  
Steve had thought it was over.  
  
—————————

  
Tony didn’t hide the bondmark on his neck but he gave a different answer every time someone asked after it. Reckless one night stand was a popular one. _Someone took ‘Bite me’ a bit too seriously,_ was another.  
  
“I was the blushing bride to Captain America,” Tony joked when Steve had finally gathered the courage to ask. Then he sighed and his voice turned serious. “It wasn’t you, Steve. I never found you over there. Believe me, I looked.”  
  
He sounded defeated but Steve’s stomach fluttered, flattered that Tony would seek him out. He knew not to pry further, he got his one allotted answer.

Against his will his eyes were drawn to the mark on Tony’s throat; jealousy and awe warring with each other. It was still blush pink, healed over in a perfect cicatrice, like it had been reaffirmed over and over again. Being bonded that long - _in love_ for that long - could change a man’s scent from metal to saltwater. Steve suspected that was the sort of bond that hurt to lose.   
  
Tony caught him staring and zipped up his sweater. Steve averted his gaze in shame.  
  
“Shouldn’t the shock have…?” he trailed off. _Bonded_ didn’t mean forever. Snapped bonds were survivable but even weak ones could make you ill if they were cut off too quick. Being separated from your mate across a dimensional rift had to be traumatic. Possibly fatal.  
  
“Not that it’s any of your business but I already consulted Bruce about it. I’m fine, Steve. It wasn’t a long-term thing, I promise you.” Despite his words there was something sad in Tony’s eyes.

Steve could give a man time to grieve. He changed the subject. “What was it like on the other side?”  
  
Tony snorted. “Dreadfully medieval, the Dark Ages give me hives. They didn’t have enough tech to do anything and when have I ever let that stop me but… ” he shook his head self-deprecatingly. “I thought I could handle it, you know? All those unenlightened people with their ideas of how the world worked… ”  
  
Steve’s lips quirked at Tony’s annoyance. “Not much fun being the Man out of Time is it?”  
  
Tony winced at the comparison. “I never gave you enough credit.”  
  
“The Future had a good host.” Steve smiled and after a moment Tony matched it. “You should know there’s a bet going on about what invention you gave them first. Carol has her money on air travel, Rhodes has the machine lathe. I think Clint chose aqueducts.”  
  
“Does Clint know what an aqueduct _is_?”  
  
“I think he thought it was a type of mechanical bird that lives in water.”  
  
There was a pause.

“An _aqua duck_.” Tony shook his head. “_Jesus Christ._” The curse was the barest whisper, like Tony hoped not to be heard. Steve supposed in the Dark Ages such caution was warranted.  
  
“So what do you have your money riding on, Rogers?” Tony turned, expectant.  
  
“A suit of armour, of course.”

He was rewarded with a smile. One of Tony’s real ones, soft and slow. That, at least, hadn’t changed. Not like the swearing, not like the bite.  
  
Or maybe Tony had changed so much that Steve couldn’t tell what was real anymore.  
  
————————————

He was blindsided on Tuesday.

“I’m taking a hiatus from the team.”  
  
Steve blinked up at Bruce. “Where are you going?”  
  
“Nowhere,” Bruce huffed, hands clasped in front of him, “I’ll be here working on the veil problem with Reed. I just can’t trust the Other Guy to behave himself right now. It’s not forever, I just need to get a handle on it.”

"Is it Betty?" Steve asked, aware as he said it that the question was too invasive for a man as private as Bruce. “Is there anything the Avengers can do? I can do?”  
  
Banner paused as if considering it, then shook his head. “I’m sorry for bailing but I won’t risk it.”  
  
“We trust you, Bruce. We trust the Hulk too, he’d never endanger innocent lives.“  
  
“I know Cap, but he can get confused sometimes when I’m not…” Bruce sighed. “Innocent and guilty aren’t always easy to tell apart. The Other Guy might have trouble telling the difference.”  
  
In the end there was nothing Steve could do but grant the request.   
  
_Here_, Steve would later decide, was the moment he should have known something was wrong.  
  
  
—————————————

Four years without the armour hadn’t dulled Tony’s battle skills nor had they honed his self-preservation instincts. One minute Iron Man was flying Hawkeye to a new vantage point, the next Steve was watching a dinosaur swallow him whole. If Morgan le Fay thought a giant lizard was going to take Tony away from Steve again she had another thing coming.  
  
He saw his opening and took it. She crumpled under Steve’s shield, went down under his left hook. Barely lifted her head to meet his crushing straight right.

Tony was gone and Steve hadn’t protected him. Again.

“Easy, Cap,” Hawkeye said over the coms, “Squishy wizard down. You made your point.”   
  
Steve couldn’t stop. His fists hit flesh to the steady drumbeat of his heart. There was only one way she was never going to hurt anyone again. Not the people of New York, not innocent dinosaurs, not _Tony_ -  
  
“Hey!”  
  
Steve felt a gauntleted hand grab his drawn-back fist. The Iron Man armour managed to shine through the layer of guts and blood overtop. “She’s down. You don’t do this, Steve.”  
  
“She could have killed you,” Steve rasped.  
  
“There were dinosaurs with feathers rampaging through Times Square and we were saved by you hitting a sorceress with a big metal frisbee. I promise you I haven’t had this much fun in a long time.”  
  
Steve stared at where Iron Man’s armour had bent under long sharp teeth and something dark in him quickened. “Is this _fun_ for you, Stark?” he hissed lowly. “Because almost losing you again really isn’t _fun_ for me.”  
  
Steve didn’t recognize his own voice, distorted by the primitive force of his nature. All the Avengers took a half-step back. All except Tony.

“Steve…” Iron Man’s voice crackled in exasperation.  
  
“Answer the question,” Steve growled, posture rigid and bristling. He hated this part of himself that needed to be obeyed and had the violence to enforce it. _Alpha_, strong and pissed off.  
  
Everyone could read the warning. There was the barest whisper of movement as Clint knocked an arrow. Carol’s eyes burned white. Wisps of red wound around Wanda’s fingers. Balanced on the edge.   
  
Tony retracted his helmet. He looked awful: pale and sweating with dark circles under his eyes, but he still smelled like the sea. It made Steve feel wrong-footed.  
  
“You’re right.” Tony’s voice was serious as the grave. “I’m bleeding and I killed an innocent creature and it’s not fun. You saved me. You saved Time Square. And now we’re going home.” He edged closer. “You’re scaring me, Steve.”  
  
_Me_, not _us_. Tony wasn’t the only one on edge - wasn't the only omega on the team even - but it was his spike of distress that choked Steve's senses. When he met Tony’s gaze he found worry and concern and perfect trust.  
  
“Captain,” Vision said and Tony flinched at the interruption. “I can take Le Fay into custody.”  
  
The scent of the sea made Steve light-headed. “Alright.”  
  
He stared down at his hands. The red of his gloves hid blood well.  
  
He wondered if Tony designed them that way on purpose.   
  
————————————  
  
Later he realized what was missing.  
  
“You call me Steve.”  
  
Tony raised an eyebrow. “It’s your name. Thinking of changing it?”  
  
“You used to call me Cap. Or any other nickname you came up with.” He grew frustrated by his own lack of argument. "Now it’s just… ”  
  
Tony clearly thought the complaint was ridiculous. “I guess I just missed calling someone Steve. Over there it was like playing Marco Polo with no one answering. You do. It’s nice.”  
  
It was a perfectly valid explanation. Steve couldn’t let it go.  
  
————————————

It was the accumulation of little things. Tiny missteps that on their own meant nothing. There was the gala where the uppity senator’s aide had run his hand possessively across Tony’s back and Tony hadn’t even broken conversation. He just stood there allowing the touch and Steve nearly ripped the other alpha’s arm off, heart pounding with the effort it took to restrain himself from knocking the man out.

Afterward Tony had rounded on him. “If I wanted his arm broken, I’d have done it myself.”  
  
Steve wasn’t going to go down without a fight. “Don’t pretend you were okay with that.”  
  
“I was fine.” Tony’s voice was cold. “I don’t belong to you, Rogers.”  
  
He never did and he never would, Steve knew that now.

Tony belonged to a ghost.   
  
His orbit changed. His basement lab was taken over by Reed and Bruce for the veil. Doctor Strange still dropped by weekly as if unable to break the habit. Logan of all people became a near permanent fixture in the Mansion. He’d never been a prominent fan of the Avengers or Tony in particular but now he’d lounge around the common areas at all hours. Steve was never sure if he was there for food or poker or Tony.  
  
Bucky went the other way. He drifted as far away from Avengers Mansion as he could get, repelled like a magnet. Only Steve seemed to notice that Bucky ducked out of any room Tony entered. It didn’t seem hostile but it bothered him, even if the want for distance seemed mutual.  
  
Peter’s separation wasn’t mutual. Everyone noticed him desperately trying to catch Tony’s attention and Tony’s equally steadfast determination to ignore him. Several people - Rhodey chief among them - had issued rebukes along the lines of _I don’t care if you’re still adjusting, you can be kind to the kid who helped save your life_. They didn’t work well enough. Tony was gentler sure, but he still pushed Peter away, fobbing him off on Banner or Rhodey.  
  
After the elation of seeing Tony alive finally faded, Steve was left with the cold hard truth. It had been a month and Tony looked no better than when he returned; pale and thin, with dark circles etched under his eyes and a charming smile that no longer blinded Steve’s careful inspection.  
  
“Are you alright?” Steve asked, every time.  
  
“More than,” Tony replied and Steve believed him. Every time.  
  
Depending on your perspective, it was even true.

\-----------------------------

Tony’s bondmark never faded. Maybe the rules across the veil were different and that’s why the bite was as pink as the day he returned, why he never went into shock. Maybe there was still someone else on the other side, waiting where Tony could go and Steve couldn’t follow.   
  
“You could go back you know.” The words were ash in his mouth.  
  
“No, I can’t,” Tony replied, hunched over himself. “There’s nothing left.”  
  
Steve let his eyes close. That explained so much. “I’m sorry.”   
  
“Don’t be. It’s better this way.”  
  
“If there’s anything you need - “  
  
There was a pause.  
  
“You. I need you,” Tony confessed and Steve’s heart stopped. “Stay. Please.”  
  
Tony reached for him and his hand wasn’t calloused in the familiar way Steve remembered. The palm was soft and smooth, as cold and clammy as a corpse’s. He was still too thin and pale; a bandage around his forearm from Strange's constant blood tests. Familiar dark eyes held something alien and Steve was suddenly afraid. This was what he’d wanted, to get them back to what they were before. Back to Avenging and bickering and bouts of sex that Steve took far more seriously than Tony ever did.  
  
Except Tony had found someone he loved and married and mourned. It just wasn’t Steve.  
  
“I can’t be their replacement.”  
  
The hand retreated. “Whose?”  
  
“Whoever gave you this,” Steve’s thumb stroked the bondmark and Tony ducked his head. “I can’t, Tony, please don’t - “  
  
“I’m asking you to,” Tony whispered, pulling Steve’s hand away. “I know it’s unfair. I know it’s selfish. I just - Please, Cap. Please.”  
  
It was the way Tony said _Cap_ that did it. Reverent. Steve was weak.  
  
Tony was skinnier than when he left, hipbones jutting sharply without the underlying muscle. He was cold at the extremities and feverish at the core, slower too; keeping Steve’s pace when before he’d race ahead and call the shots. He tasted like copper and salt.  
  
He dragged Steve’s hand downward and Steve said the words he knew he should even as his fingers did as they were asked. “We don’t have to.”   
  
“We’d better,” Tony growled in a tone Steve remembered from simpler times. “Third drawer down.”  
  
Steve obeyed and pulled out a series of foil circles. Condoms, right. They hadn't used them before but it was reasonable, a request one would make of any casual lover regardless of whether said lover wanted more. Steve outfitted himself and then Tony was pushing him down to the bed and climbing on top, lining himself up.  
  
He winced and Steve steadied his hips. “Go easy.”  
  
Tony didn’t answer, just removed Steve’s hands from his torso and impaled himself to the hilt. It might have felt fantastic, Steve wouldn’t know because every bit of him was busy being horrified at the pain written in every line of Tony’s face.  
  
Steve rolled them. “Why would you - “  
  
Tony wrapped his legs behind Steve’s back, preventing him from withdrawing. “I’m fine, Steve. Seriously.” He leaned up and kissed him softly, like Steve was the one who needed to be comforted. “Make me feel good?”  
  
Steve didn’t know why Tony thought that deserved to be a question. “Always.”  
  
He set a pace close to what he remembered Tony preferring. Not quite rough but close enough to the edge to feel dangerous. Tony didn’t give any direction otherwise. He didn’t touch himself either, body and pleasure entirely at Steve’s mercy.

He might have been imagining someone else but he got the name right. “Steve, Steve, _Steve_…”  
  
Steve’s gaze slid down Tony’s throat to the reddened mark and could only hope that he gave what was needed.  
  
———————————  
  
In the morning Tony was gone and there was blood on the sheets. His wound had reopened sometime during the night.  
  
The bloodstain was a crimson Rorscach test; you could see whatever you wanted in it.  
  
———————————

Steve ignored the warning signs until it was nearly too late.  
  
Iron Man’s behaviour in the field became erratic; flip-flopping between perfect obedience and willful defiance. Sometimes he followed Steve’s instructions to the letter, so silent over coms that Steve checked in periodically to make sure he was still there. Other times he was so needlessly headstrong that he contradicted every order.  
  
It came to a head in Amsterdam with a sea serpent. Tony had ignored the battle plan from the off and every tactical adjustment since. When he refused the command to _move those civilians out of the way_ and instead flew off in the opposite direction, Steve hit his limit. He didn’t know what Tony was doing and he no longer cared. The Avengers couldn’t afford a wildcard in the fight. He had Vision physically remove Iron Man from the battlefield.  
  
Later Tony had come for him swinging and Steve gave as good as he got which was considerably less than what he was capable of. Tony was out of shape, out of practice and without the armour it wasn’t even a contest. It ended with Steve pinning him to the wall, limbs utterly immobilized. Steve had the moral, logical and physical high ground, he should have known that Tony’s only move left was to kiss him.  
  
Suddenly they were making out furiously, all teeth and unkindness. Steve didn’t give Tony an inch, not even when he tasted the unpleasant tang of his own blood and saw the triumphant smear of red across Tony’s mouth, lips arranged into a cruel smirk.  
  
Steve got angry. It was easy. It was always easy with Tony. They’d been here before; defiance and confrontation and sublimated lust.  
  
“Stop,” Tony ordered abruptly and Steve pulled back. Tony’s gaze was intent and calculating. “Off.”  
  
Steve felt a surge of unbearable frustration before he dropped Tony to the floor and stepped back. Tony just flashed a cocky grin like he’d known exactly the magic words Steve couldn’t ignore. Steve knew he’d failed this test and he felt the embarrassment climb to his face in a flush. He left Tony to his victory in a pile on the floor. He didn’t look back.  
  
“You’re suspended,” Steve said without preamble when he found Tony in the common room that night. He still didn’t know what game Tony was playing with them all but it wouldn’t be a liability in the field anymore.  
  
“Like hell I am,” Tony retorted, “just because Captain America didn’t get laid - “  
  
“You were off active duty either way,” Steve said resolutely. “I’m not playing _Simon Says_ with you while innocent lives are in danger. I can make it an official Avengers sanction or you can take a vacation. Choose.”  
  
Tony chose.  
  
——————————  
  
Bucky’s sabbatical involved stealing Steve’s motorcycle and taking off for the coast.  
  
——————————  
  
Benching Tony only hastened the spiral. It was like Iron Man was the only thing keeping him in check.

It devolved: bars, tabloid headlines, parties. Steve held his breath, waiting for the self-destruction to take something irreparable but Tony balanced everything precisely on a knife’s edge. The nights he didn’t come back to the Mansion were cause for concern. The nights he did were worse.

He’d show up at Steve’s door at midnight; clothes dishevelled, bruises optional. Sometimes he’d smell like sex: alpha pheromones reeking off him or omega fluids stuck to his skin. Steve could barely look at him. He wondered if that was the point Tony was trying to prove; standing defiant under the scrutiny. But most of the time when Steve opened the door Tony was dripping wet from the shower, scrubbed down to the bone, like with enough soap and scraping he could smell like nothing. Steve could always smell the sea.  
  
The question was invariably the same.

“Can I sleep here?” Tony would ask, eyes down, subservient in a way that was clearly unnatural.  
  
Steve never turned him down. He would bury himself in Steve’s bed and they would sleep. It was the best rest Steve would get all week, knowing that Tony was back and safe. Sometimes Steve woke to him throwing up, his body rejecting whatever substances he had substituted for a good night’s sleep the rest of the week.  
  
“Have you been drinking?” Steve couldn’t resist asking at four in the morning when darkness covered the question.   
  
Tony glared at him, or tried to, only one eye truly awake where his face was resting on the porcelain rim of the toilet. “No. If you’d actually suspended me instead of sending me on vacation you could drug test me.”  
  
“I believe you,” Steve said. The lingering effects of the bondshock Tony was still clearly in denial about more than explained the nausea. The lack of sleep couldn’t help.   
  
“I didn’t have a single drink over there. Three years, two hundred and forty-six days.” Tony’s eyes were unfocused, drifting closed. “Beer was literally safer to drink than water but none for me…”  
  
Steve rubbed his back. “I’m proud of you. I know that couldn’t have been easy.”  
  
Tony snorted and his eyes drifted shut. He was already asleep when Steve carried him back to bed.  
  
The nights were awful but the mornings were bliss. Tony gave Steve what he’d never told a soul he wanted: a slice of domestic life. Lazy, unhurried blow jobs and long two-person showers. They’d make love slowly in the morning sun and if Tony was imagining someone else he never let it show. Brunch became an extravagant affair and Tony was finally putting on weight, but the carefree generosity of it all made Steve uneasy, like those mornings were repayment for a good night’s rest and Tony was settling his tab with interest.  
  
Then, debt paid, he’d disappear and the countdown reset.  
  
———————————————

Later Steve would watch the exchange on loop:   
  
Logan, grunting at the kitchen table. “You smell like him.”   
  
Tony, halfway through his coffee. “How could you possibly know that? I’ve taken two showers.”  
  
Logan tapped his nose. “I ain’t ordinary.”   
  
“It’s just Steve.”  
  
“No, bub, it ain’t.” With a wet _snikt_ metal claws appeared and then retracted.  
  
“Well I won't soon enough,” Tony replied and Logan nodded his agreement.  
  
There was nothing preventing Steve from getting the footage sooner, he just never thought to check.  
  
———————————  
  
Tony started taking scent blockers again and Steve was remiss to admit he missed the scent of saltwater. They were laying in bed, Tony asleep and tucked across Steve’s front. The bondmark on his throat shone accusingly. It made Steve feel like a homewrecker but with Tony pressed close even the reminder couldn’t faze him. It was a part of himself Tony would never allow Steve to intrude on and Steve needed to make his peace with it. He pressed his lips chaste as he could just below the scar tissue that was as good as a wedding ring.  
  
Tony’s eyes flew open and he jerked himself out of Steve’s embrace violently. “No.”  
  
Steve held out his hands in surrender. “I wouldn’t.“  
  
Tony had one hand clamped over his mark to protect it. “I can’t let you - “  
  
“It was my mistake.” He used to tongue and nip at Tony’s gland, basking in the glow of trust even knowing it would go no further. “I know you don’t want me to. So I won’t.”  
  
Tony closed his eyes and consciously relaxed. “I trust you. I know that wasn’t enough for you before.” His lips twitched in a defeated half-smile. “I’m sorry. For all of this.”  
  
Steve’s heart ached. “Don’t be. It was enough for me before and it’s enough for me now.”  
  
Tony eventually slipped back under the covers and plastered himself to Steve’s front again. Steve tried to ignore the feeling of rightness. It didn’t belong to him and Tony had made it clear three times over that it never would. Under his palm he could feel Tony’s heartbeat. Fast. Too fast.  
  
“You don’t owe me anything,” Steve said hoarsely, trying to calm him. “Whoever they were was lucky to have you.”  
  
Steve couldn’t see his face but Tony’s voice was brittle.  
  
“I was the worst decision he ever made.”  
  
———————————  
  
Still, “Why are you avoiding Bucky?”  
  
“I’m not. I kind of have a soft spot for the guy since he risked his life to rescue me and all.”  
  
“Alright, why is Bucky avoiding you?”   
  
Tony just shrugged. “You’d have to ask him.”  
  
Steve called his bluff and followed through.   
  
————————————

Bucky hit him outside of a bar in Montana. The punch only landed because Steve wasn't expecting it but he could feel the bruise bloom across his cheek.  
  
“Shit,” Bucky swore, once he recognized Steve. He was drunk and a mess. “How’s Tony?”  
  
The question was worrisome in its seriousness. Bucky needed the answer and he needed the answer to be good.  
  
“Fine,” Steve said automatically, then revised. “No. Not fine. Erratic.”  
  
“He hurt anyone?”  
  
_“What?”_ The word was ripped from him.  
  
“Himself? Strange? You?”  
  
“Of course not,” Steve hissed and then lowered his voice. “Why do you think he’s going to?”  
  
Bucky’s pupils shone like black holes. “I would. I’d want to.”  
  
Steve’s voice was ice. “What happened over there.”  
  
“He smells different, you notice that? Makes me want to hit something. I don’t know how Logan stands it. How have you not… ”  
  
“What. Happened.”  
  
“You were gone.” Bucky’s stare was blank. “You were dead over there and the world fell apart. It was all their Stark’s fault. He murdered me and probably Logan and dozens of others. Then he was arrested, tried, and executed in the name of the Lord. There was even a song about it, they sang it in pubs.” His expression darkened. “There was another song about how he made a deal with the Devil to come back.”  
  
_ All those unenlightened people with their ideas of how the world worked._  
  
The fluttering in Steve’s stomach tried to warn him of danger. “Tony’s not going to hurt me or you or anyone. We’re his friends.”  
  
“Are we? At least I know what I did. You have no idea what you’re doing to him.“  
  
“Then tell me.”  
  
“He was gone for five months and you forgot everything you ever knew about him," Bucky accused. "Being bonded for him is different than for us. Bonds are unbalanced and not in his favour. Stark didn’t build an empire by being a sucker, he doesn’t take raw deals.”  
  
“I haven’t asked him for anything since he came back.” The words scratched Steve’s throat on the way out. “He’s said no, I don’t expect him to change his mind.”  
  
“You still don’t get it,” Bucky shook his head, incredulous. “It’s not _you_. Stark never wanted to be bonded to _anyone_. Christ Steve, you kept asking about his mate like he had a sweetie back home. He was an omega stranded in a techless, medieval world that literally thought he was evil incarnate, he didn’t get _married_.  
  
“Tony was bonded for nearly four years as _punishment_.”  
  
———————————  
  
Steve had no idea how he got back to the Tower. He went through the motions with perfect precision but the actual journey was static. He was calm. It was probably denial.  
  
His mind tried to avoid the reality that now imposed itself. Tony was different but he wasn’t _different_. He hadn’t fallen off the wagon, he didn’t avoid touch. He didn’t have any new scars where someone would have had to force Tony to submit because he didn’t bow his head for anyone. He still smiled and laughed. He was still Iron Man. He still had sex.  
  
He was still a liar. He’d lied to Steve before about greater things. So Tony had taken this secret and buried it deep while on the surface he remained more or less functional. Steve had seen the ragged edges of the wound and dug his thumbs in. He’d thought he was being kind.   
  
He blinked and found himself in the common room of the Mansion. He wasn’t alone. Clint and Dr. Strange were at the table. The room was tense, stress lingering in the air despite the casual domestic scene.  
  
“Blood.” In the air.  
  
Clint looked up. “It’s spooky when you do that. It’s not mine. With that bruise you’re sporting you sure it’s not yours?”  
  
Steve pressed a palm to his cheek and relished the ache Bucky’s fist had left. “Where’s Tony?” he asked, the barest strands of panic beginning to coalesce.  
  
“He got back with Bruce about an hour ago, why?”  
  
The blood was Tony’s. The pain was Tony’s. Something in Steve’s hindbrain came alive, buzzing frantically in the background. He couldn’t sort through his thoughts. “He shouldn’t smell like the sea.”  
  
Clint was confused. “I don’t have super-senses but you’re the one who smells like they took a dunk in a vat of Ocean Breeze. Tony only smells like the sea after he spends the night with you or are we all still pretending we don’t know about that?”  
  
Strange’s eyes narrowed and Steve bristled. He felt his grip on himself loosen against his will. He loomed over the sorcerer, voice harsh. “Where’s Tony?”  
  
Strange didn’t back down. “I don’t know.”  
  
The haughty dismissal was the last straw. Steve bared his teeth and ripped the newspaper out of Strange’s hands and a moment later he was thrown across the room by an invisible force.  
  
“What the fuck?!“ Clint yelled as he scrambled back.  
  
Strange was not amused. “I wouldn’t try that again, Captain. Ever. On anyone. Especially not me and especially not Anthony.”   
  
Clint had taken up a very foolish position between them. “First of all: massive overreaction, Doc. Secondly: Cap, this isn’t like you. The guy might be a dick but Avengers policy is that’s not a good enough reason to attack someone.”  
  
Every feral instinct in Steve was screaming to continue the fight. Strange was an uninvited alpha in his space while Tony was hurt, while his omega -  
  
(Tony wasn’t his. Tony never wanted to be anyone’s.)  
  
Shame smothered the primal urges down to embers. Stephen was Tony’s friend, he was _Steve’s_ friend though you wouldn’t have guessed from the force he’d just used. Steve uncurled his fists. The stench of rot drenched him, infecting his pores. He was drowning in it and every heaving breath just drew more inside him. It was _hurt_ sung strong and awful. Why couldn’t anyone else feel it?  
  
Steve’s hands trembled. “There’s something wrong with Tony, I know it. He’s hurt. We need to help him. I need to - ”  
  
“Tony’s fine, Steve.” Bruce’s voice was calm where he appeared in the hallway. “He’s just taking a nap.”   
  
“I think I’ll see that for myself.”  
  
“I think you won’t,” Bruce said mildly. “Take a walk. I’ll let him know you came by.”  
  
For one brief insane moment Steve didn’t think even the threat of the Hulk would be able to stop him. Then Logan appeared from the depths of the Mansion and Steve saw the pattern. There was Bruce guarding Tony’s room, Strange posted like a sentry, Logan roving. Bucky must have called ahead.   
  
Steve took an aborted step forward, Bruce’s eyes flashed green and then Steve knew.  
  
_Innocent and guilty. The Other Guy might have trouble telling the difference._  
  
———————————  
  
Bucky picked up on the first ring and Steve didn’t let him speak.  
  
“Why did you hit me?”

There was a sharp intake of breath but Steve barrelled on. “Their Steve wasn’t dead. If I was dead over there I would have been able to cross the veil.” Bucky didn’t correct him no matter how much Steve willed it. “That’s why you hit me. It was me, in the other world. I hurt Tony.”  
  
Bucky hung up but Steve received three texts.   
  
_We both did. _  
  
_You weren’t you._  
  
_I was me._  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Warnings:_ Non-graphic implied rape, sexual coercion, religious themes. It’s a body horror story from an outsider's PoV. It'll get worse in Part II and warnings will be updated.
> 
> It's mostly 616 with some IronDad ported in.


	2. The Departed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The mark on Tony’s throat was covered by the collar of a fashionable black coat from which a red scarf hung, streaming down like blood. A ritual sacrifice at the altar of Steve Rogers._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BEFORE YOU READ: Updated content cautions at the end.

The roof of the Mansion was deserted. Or it had been when Steve had chosen it.  
  
“So I owe you an explanation.” Tony sat close but not touching, a distinction not lost. “If you keep pulling the story out of Barnes, he’s going to keep leaving me panicked voicemails.”  
  
Tony smelled sour, sick, like old sweat. The clean smell of the ocean replaced with the hollow scent of loss and rot. Underneath it though was finally something Steve recognized. “You smell like you again.”  
  
“There’s a reason for that,” Tony grimaced, “it’s because I don’t smell like you anymore. Or the Captain if you want to get technical.”  
  
“That’s what you called him.” _Captain. Cap. _  
  
“That’s what everyone called him. I don’t think he’d answered to anything else in a long time.”   
  
Steve watched his breath condense in the cold air. It was the only proof he was alive, everything else about him was numb, shutting down. “You didn’t tell me.”  
  
“Here’s the part where I’m supposed to say I kept it secret to protect you. But I didn’t. It wasn’t for your benefit, it was for mine. I don’t exactly come off well. _That time I ignored all safety protocols, stranded myself in the Dark Ages, and an alternate version of Steve Rogers bonded me against my will and passed me around like a party favour for four years._“ Steve’s jaw clicked. Tony didn’t even notice. “It was hardly a heroic tale of romance and perseverance. I just liked that you thought it was. You thought I got married and revolutionized the world. I didn’t want to admit to you how badly I failed.”  
  
“You didn’t fail.”  
  
“I _absolutely_ did,” Tony said, voice colourless. “I assumed so many things I shouldn’t have. I thought I was invincible. I went looking for the Captain. I just assumed he’d help me because he looked like you.”  
  
It hurt to know Tony might have been spared if only he’d trusted Steve a little less. “I’m sorry.”  
  
“_You don’t get to say that," _Tony said too sharply. "I used you. I lied to you. I fucked up your missions, I dropped you blind into situations where your instincts went haywire. I used you for sex and sleep and comfort. _I’m_ the one who’s sorry. You didn’t deserve any of it.”   
  
“Neither did you,” Steve said in case no one had.  
  
None of it was fair.  
  
“I don’t think I ever thanked you for sending Barnes and Logan. I can't repay you enough.”   
  
“You don’t owe me." Steve’s stomach clenched at the implications. "You certainly don’t owe me _you_."  
  
Tony shook his head. “Not what I was doing, that was all selfish too. You were right, bond shock should have killed me when I came back. But it didn’t." He gave a tiny, hollow smile. "I brought just enough of the Captain back with me to keep me alive.”  
  
Steve’s eyes flicked instinctively to the heat pack laid across Tony’s abdomen. The contrary scents of _loss_ and _blood_ and _relief_ suddenly made sense. He felt sick.  
  
Tony snorted breathlessly. “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and no one noticed. Insomnia, morning sickness, sobriety, weight gain, blockers. My scent wasn’t even the same as when I left and people just chalked it up to… me being me, I guess.”  
  
“You smell like you now.” Warm and metallic and smooth.   
  
“I had a choice. I had a deadline. The hospital was a nice upgrade; medieval doctors suck.” Tony’s gaze was sharp. “Don’t you dare tell me I shouldn’t have.”  
  
“I wasn’t. But it was the only thing keeping you from going into shock.“  
  
“Yeah.” Tony held out a shaking hand. “Delayed bond withdrawal. Let’s see if this part kills me.”  
  
“Please don’t joke.” That was the cruellest irony of them all: Tony was dying of a bond Steve had so desperately wanted and that Tony never did.  
  
Tony smiled wanly. “You've been good to me. Too good for how I've treated you, probably. Bruce thinks you’re having a sympathetic response to the broken bond and the fact I had a tagalong with your DNA." Steve hated the dismissal of their connection as biology. "It should degrade as I go through withdrawal so if you feel a resurgence in your desire to hit me, you’re right on track.”  
  
“I don't want to hurt you.”  
  
“Well I won’t hold you to it.” Tony shifted and winced. “I couldn’t keep it, Steve. I couldn’t let him use me one last time.”  
  
Tony would rather die. He still might.  
  
———————————  
  
He wondered, those days Tony spent in the ICU, if there was something he could have done. He was genetically identical to Tony’s ex-bondmate after all. A bite might have stabilized him. It was an academic exercise: Banner would have killed Steve the moment he tried.  
  
Bucky arrived on the third day looking like a zombie. He handed Steve a coffee and slumped into the adjacent chair. “I’m sorry.”  
  
“So am I.”  
  
“I wasn’t supposed to tell you. I wasn’t supposed to tell _anyone_. He asked me for one thing and I couldn’t even do that.”  
  
Steve was torn between anger and gratefulness. “When he wakes up you can apologize in person.”  
  
_When_ not _if_.

“Probably a good idea, I don’t think Stark checks his voicemail too often.”  
  
Steve stared down into the cooling coffee like it contained the secrets of universe. "You'd be surprised."  
  
Only once he knew Tony would pull through did he take off for parts unknown.  
  
————————————  
  
February in the Midwest was barren. Interstate trucking compacted the snowfall into heavy slush. Dirty spray stuck to wheel wells until dipping temperatures froze them into stalactites. Instead of fluffy flakes, the snow fell in whipping icicles that drove into skin like needles.  
  
The cold found every crack in Steve’s armour. The line of his wrist between glove and coat; the tips of his ears; his cheeks where tears dried slowly, taking heat and sorrows with them.   
  
It wasn’t beautiful.  
  
Real life rarely was.  
  
————————————  
  
Bucky called him occasionally. Never to talk. The one time Steve called him back, Natasha answered.   
  
It was a relief in a way. Bucky needed someone and Steve couldn’t be that person. Not right now. It was healthy and good and deserved.   
  
Steve broke his phone and never replaced it.  
  
————————————  
  
He was worried Bucky might track him down, or Carol might decide his self-exile was over. He was utterly unprepared for who caught up with him.  
  
“Long time no see.” Tony looked as put together as he did when Steve had first emerged from the ice. Handsome and charming, without a care in the world. The perfection was an illusion. It hurt to look at.  
  
Tony slid into the booth opposite. “If you’re avoiding coming back to the Mansion because you’re still pissed at me, we should trade places. I’ll take the sad road trip. I’m on medical leave anyway.”  
  
“I’m not angry at you.” Steve forced himself to meet Tony's eyes. “Does everyone know?”  
  
“No." Tony's breath hitched. "Barnes and Logan know, obviously. Bruce and Stephen, for medical reasons. Reed because he was excited to take his family exploring through the veil and I kind of… lost it at him.” Tony’s smile was plastic. “I’m aware that sounds like the Jeopardy answer to _Who are the five men least qualified to deal with my emotional crisis?”_  
  
“No, they’re not. They’re your friends.” Steve could see the weight in Tony’s tired eyes, the anxious set of his shoulders. “Peter?”  
  
“Thank _fuck_, no. He only knows something bad happened and no one’s talking about it. And now you know and you won’t come home. You’re the second supersoldier to run across the country to get away from me. You’re gonna give me a complex.”  
  
“He told me he hurt you. Bucky.”  
  
Tony’s teeth clacked shut and Steve knew he wasn't going to like what was coming. “He didn’t. Barnes infiltrated one of the castle celebrations. He impressed some people it was good to impress and I was his very public reward. No one turned down the Captain’s favour.” Steve’s fists clenched below the table. “I don’t remember much of it, I was pretty out of my mind in heat. He didn’t get caught but right now he won’t be anywhere near me regardless of how many times I tell him _I’m fine, I don't remember,_ or _you rescued me Barnes, I really don't care._”  
  
“He just gave you away?” It just slipped out. Steve could never share his omega - share _Tony_ \- he couldn’t imagine the Captain could.  
  
Tony’s lips quirked. “You are severely underestimating how much the Captain hated his Stark. Take the worst feelings you’ve ever had towards me and multiply that by about a dozen bodies.”  
  
It wasn’t an idle exercise. Steve remembered what hating Tony felt like. “What happened to them?”  
  
“What always happens with us. We were allies and friends and then we fell apart. We fought, I lost, but not before I did my share of damage; including killing the man the Captain actually loved. He caught other-me but apparently torture and hanging was too light a sentence, so when I came through he got a second chance. He took a different approach that time.”  
  
The mark on Tony’s throat was covered by a fashionable black coat from which a red scarf hung, streaming down like blood. A ritual sacrifice at the altar of Steve Rogers. His gaze was a million miles away. “His revenge consumed him. The night of the revels he was so fixated on punishing me he didn’t recognize his one true love, back from the dead, and standing right in front of him."  
  
"I don't understand."  
  
Tony raised an eyebrow. “Didn't you ever wonder why Bucky was avoiding you too? He's not too keen on being the reason you go insane and join the Dark Side."  
  
Steve’s stomach sunk.  
  
Tony shook off his trance, lips twitching. “So hey, you have terrible taste in men regardless of moral alignment. At least you’re consistent.”  
  
His eyes were alight, inviting Steve to share in the joke, his smile utterly empty, mania stretched thin over sharp edges.  
  
Steve didn’t know how to fix this.  
  
——————————————  
  
He didn’t go back.  
  
Neither did Tony.  
  
——————————————  
  
Steve would check them into a seedy motel and they’d sleep in the same room in separate beds, the gulf between them unbroachable. Then in the morning they’d clamber into the car and Steve would drive them vaguely east, Tony asleep in the passenger seat like he hadn’t rested at all the night before.  
  
Most of the time Tony spoke of the other world with casual offhandedness, like it was a crummy vacation to a third-tier tourist trap. Comments like how bars in this dimension were so much more civilized, or how cotton sheets made an excellent change from straw but silk was better. He remarked quite often that running hot water was worth its weight in gold.  
  
Steve wasn’t going to be fooled again. (Like he hadn't said that every time he fell for Tony’s mask. Over and over and over again.)  
  
He couldn’t remember the last time he saw Tony’s eyes in daylight instead of hidden behind dark sunglasses. The jokes didn’t cover Tony's newfound tendency to clean his plate or the fact his personality dimmed when he thought Steve wasn’t looking. Whenever their borrowed car passed a church Tony held his breath.  
  
One night Tony kissed him across the divide, mouth soft but resolute and it had taken everything in Steve to retreat slowly instead of flinching back.  
  
“So that’s a no, then,” Tony said with forced lightness, scrambling to cover the rejection. “Makes sense, I hung you out to dry for awhile there, let’s just - “  
  
“It’s not you,” Steve croaked. “It’s me.”  
  
“But it’s not you,” Tony sneered, suddenly monstrous. “It’s _him_. Fuck him. He was my personal hell, he doesn’t get to be yours too. You don't even know what he - “ Tony bit off the rest before huffing. “Ignore me, it’s been a long day. I’ll let you sleep, Cap.”   
  
Steve did flinch then. “Don’t call me that.”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
Steve glared. “You know why not.”  
  
“It’s your goddamn title, Steve. You’ve had it for eighty years._ Captain America. Captain Spangles. Captain, Cappy, Cap -_ ”  
  
“Stop it. You called _him_ that.”  
  
“No, everyone else called him that. I called him _Steve_, for all the good it did me.” The words hit Steve like a punch to the gut but Tony just drew himself taller. “So where does that leave me? Any other words I’m not allowed to use? I begged him to stop a lot, maybe that word should be stricken from - ”  
  
Steve walked out.   
  
——————————————  
  
He dumped the box of donuts into Tony’s lap the next morning before sliding into the driver’s seat. Tony handed him a large coffee. Neither of them apologized.  
  
Iowa in February looked just as depressing as Nebraska in February.  
  
“I hated winters the most.” Tony was staring out the window. “My room was cold. Not freezing, just cold. I’d try to get used to it but - “ his breath hitched. “He’d send for me and all I would think was _at least I’m going to be warm tonight._”  
  
Steve kept his eyes on the road, dashed line rushing by. “I don’t like the cold either.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
Tony closed his eyes and slept.  
  
——————————————  
  
The anecdotes were meted out in clusters. There would be hours of silence followed by a deluge. Once Tony started it was if a damn had burst and he couldn’t help but lance the boil. He told Steve about having his fingers broken and public humiliations. About separating the people who abused you from those you knew in a different life. He sung the song of his own death until Steve had memorized every word.  
  
“I didn’t lie to you before,” Tony had said while waiting in a drive-thru, “I kept my sobriety. The Captain never gave me alcohol. Water-only. So he did me a favour I guess.”  
  
Then later, “He’d shave me. Sometimes he kept the beard, the mustache, sometimes he got rid of it all. He’d hold me down and just... decide who I was going to be.“ Tony ran a finger along the underside of his jaw. “He never even nicked me.”   
  
It was compulsive truth and in unkinder times Steve had thought Tony incapable of it. But it was never cathartic. Tony seemed to share like he was oblivious to how much it hurt Steve to hear. He’d repeat stories; looping back, the same event finding awful refinement in the retelling. In a car at sixty-miles an hour there was no escape.  
  
Steve tried sometimes. “You’re not an idiot. You’re brilliant and resourceful and brave - ”  
  
“I can also take your entire fist. Did you know I could do that? Because I didn’t. He didn’t even get off on it, he just wanted to prove that he could do anything he wanted to me and I had to take it.” Tony turned to look intently at Steve. “What part of _brilliant, resourceful and brave_ did I need for that?”  
  
Steve stared at his own hands gripping the steering wheel at ten-and-two and resisted the urge to hide them. There was no way to win. He wasn’t the one playing.  
  
Tony was and he was losing.  
  
————————  
  
The breeze through the car window wasn’t enough.  
  
“You smell good.”  
  
Tony froze and then forced himself to relax. “Thanks, Cap.”  
  
“No,” Steve kept his voice deliberately calm, “you’re going into heat.”  
  
Steve tried to ignore the way Tony held himself for the rest of the drive, curled imperceptibly away. They turned in early and Tony wandered out to the local pharmacy. Later Steve heard knees hit tile and the choking sounds of bile being evacuated from an empty stomach. There was a near empty blister pack of suppressants on the floor but Tony clearly couldn’t keep them down. It was too late.  
  
“Who should I call?” Steve asked solemnly as Tony wiped his latest attempt with the back of his sleeve, pre-heat restlessness causing the motion to be jerky instead of smooth.  
  
“No one. I’ve got this. Just…” he squeezed his eyes shut, “give me a couple days. It’s just a heat. I’ve had them since I was thirteen, I can handle it.”  
  
Steve didn’t point out the obviousness of what had changed.  
  
Tony wasn’t even in heat yet and the motel room was drenched in desperation: the sweet, heady scent of omega warring with the adrenaline-spiking overlay of dread. Steve retreated outside to hide the effect it had on him anyway, hard-on insistent even as his mind was repulsed.  
  
Tony had asked for a couple days. Steve didn’t even last one. He’d slept in the car, spent the morning at a cafe, the afternoon in a bookshop. Counting down hours until it was appropriate to check-up on a grown man who had asked to be left alone.  
  
It was evening before he gave himself permission. The bedroom was empty but the bathroom door was open. Inside, the glass walls were decorated with cloudy smears of blood - enough that Steve could taste the iron in the air alongside acrid stench of vomit. Tony was fully clothed under the shower, curled up in the far corner, awake and unaware.   
  
(Tony in heat had always been voracious and energetic, and God they used to have _fun_ \- )  
  
“Tony?” Steve tried gently as he turned off the cold spray. He could tell the exact moment the scent of encroaching alpha reached Tony because his head snapped back and hit the tile. The spike of terror was immediate and Steve could see him valiantly battle it back down as reality imposed itself.  
  
“Steve,” Tony rasped. His lip was red where he’d bit it and there was a smattering of deep angry scratches around his mark, some of them still bleeding sluggishly. Heats weren’t painful in and of themselves but someone could hurt themselves trying to fight one.  
  
As if on cue a rolling shudder wracked Tony’s body. His hand crawled instinctively to his throat and dug his fingers hard into his fading bondbite. It wasn’t anywhere close to the force of an alpha’s bite but his nails broke skin. Beads of blood welled up through new half-moon dents as his body relaxed; a widowed omega drawing comfort from the last vestige of their mate.  
  
The Captain still held sway, even here.  
  
“You’re cold,” Steve said, helpless.  
  
Tony shivered, as if Steve’s voice had caused the chill. “Skin was too hot.”  
  
He hadn’t stripped a single item of clothing before resorting to the shower and Steve held his tongue. “You planning on staying in there?” he asked gently, careful to phrase it as a question.  
  
Tony didn’t answer, just got to his feet and exited the bathroom in a nervous trance, leaving Steve to follow in his wake.  
  
Steve tried for a graceful exit. “There’s juice on the table, granola bars in the grocery bag. Do you need anything else?“  
  
“You could stay.” Tony was staring straight down at the unmade bed.  
  
Steve swallowed carefully. “I don’t think you really want that.”  
  
“You don’t get to tell me what I really want,” Tony said blankly. A spasm that could have been mistaken for pain ran down his spine and a wave of heat pheromones rose off him. “I want to get fucked and I want you. Yes or - ”  
  
“No.” The irresistible smell of ripeness wasn’t enough to cover the rottenness of fear or the fact Tony couldn’t quite look him in the eye. Instead Tony’s gaze wandered down Steve’s body to his rather obvious erection and Steve had never hated his own biology more. He crossed to the door before a hand caught his wrist.  
  
“Please,” Tony croaked, all desperation and no fight. “Anything you want.“  
  
The hand around his wrist had blood caked under the fingernails.  
  
_I want you to get better,_ Steve didn’t say. It was such an unfair thing to ask.  
  
“You could - ” Tony stopped to fortify himself. “I’d be okay with it, if you still wanted to.” He didn’t strip down like Steve feared, instead he tilted his head slightly to the right, exposing the bloody column of his throat like he’d let Steve -   
  
Tony’s eyes were alive and inhuman. “Do you still want to?”  
  
The offer made Steve want to cry. In anger, in frustration, in sadness, in mourning.   
  
Only once he was safely back in the car park did he call Doctor Strange.  
  
—————————————  
  
Stephen arrived within the hour. He wasn’t alone.  
  
“Late-acting suppressants,” Reed explained with far more confidence than Steve thought the idea merited.  
  
“Are they safe?”  
  
“Of course,” Richards looked mildly offended, “barring the low statistical probability of cardiac arrest.”  
  
“It could kill him.”  
  
Reed said “In theory,” at the same time as Stephen said “Yes.”   
  
“No, plan’s off. We’re not risking Tony’s life to get him out of a rough heat. He’s not a danger to himself. It’ll last three more days at most.”  
  
“Three very unpleasant days that we could spare him,” Richards corrected.  
  
“He has a chronic heart condition!”  
  
“He’d take the risk.”  
  
“Well _I_ won’t.” Steve planted himself between the doctors and the door. “I called you to help, not to use him as an experiment - “ Richards made a move and Steve grabbed him by the collar, exposing Sue’s decades-old bite.   
  
“I said _no_,” Steve growled and pushed every frustration from the past week, the past month, into the word. It was an alpha’s order and blatant intimidation and even the Sorcerer Supreme took a placating step back.  
  
Reed on the other hand had that particular strain of scent-blindness that rendered him practically invincible. “Your answer isn’t the one that matters,” he said simply and then he slipped through Steve’s fingers.  
  
“Reed’s right, it’s not your call.” Stephen’s voice was resigned. “It’s Tony’s choice. He deserves those.”  
  
Steve couldn’t argue with that but he hated the helplessness. “Shouldn’t you be in there in case something goes wrong?”  
  
“Reed can handle it.”  
  
None of Richards’s doctorates were in medicine. “What if Tony needs - ”  
  
“What Tony needs is not to be trapped in a strange motel room with either you or me while going through a maladaptive heat cycle. He needs to be at home and not on a road trip with the spitting image of the man who violated him. He needs some version of talk therapy and maybe mood stabilizers before he starts self-medicating the only way he knows how and we have an old familiar problem on our hands. I’ve given him my professional recommendations and instead he’s here. With you.”   
  
“His choice,” Steve echoed.  
  
Stephen’s head fell into his hands. “Damn him.”  
  
Steve’s hands gripped the cold metal railing and it leeched all the warmth out of him. “Is it me? Is being around me making him worse?”  
  
“I really don’t know. I’ve yet to meet a man who could claim to know what goes on in Tony Stark’s mind.” Stephen looked at him keenly. “Are _you_ alright?”  
  
What right did Steve have not to be? He spent five months being worried and making stupid bets. Tony spent four years being stripped of his humanity. “I’m fine.”  
  
Stephen didn’t catch the lie. “I need to apologize for my overzealous behaviour at the Mansion. I should not have held what your doppelgänger did against you.”  
  
“You were protecting Tony.”  
  
“I was being a hypocrite.” Stephen’s expression twisted. “I make him uneasy these days. He needs a doctor he can trust and I find myself… failing . He won’t tell me why but I have my suspicions.” He looked mournfully at the motel door. There was more grey at his temples than before. “You’re not alone, Captain.”  
  
Steve wasn’t the only one paying for another man’s sins.  
  
————————————  
  
Tony lived. No one tried to convince him to go back.  
  
He ambushed Steve once they were alone. “You never answered my question.”  
  
_Do you still want to?_  
  
There was no response Steve could give that Tony couldn’t twist however he wanted. It wasn’t a fair thing to ask. Once upon a time, a bond with Tony was everything he wished for. But now -  
  
“It doesn’t matter. You don’t want to,” Steve replied finally, eyes glued to the horizon.  
  
Tony didn’t deny it. “The question wasn’t about me.”  
  
—————————————  
  
It was the innocuous that set Tony off.  
  
A woman’s shriek, the smell of leek soup, the metallic clunk of a deadbolt. Background details in the racket of life and then without warning Tony was _gone_. Sometimes it was only a slight tremble, sometimes he’d stop breathing, eyes wide and pupils dilated. Once, at the smell of campfire smoke Tony had opened the door of the moving car and wandered off.  
  
(Steve learned not to follow. You should never chase what you’re unprepared to catch.)  
  
He should have been grateful Tony wasn’t afraid of him but instead he spent the passing days in existential fear of faraway church bells and docile german shepherds.  
  
Each one wore Tony down, little by little.  
  
They didn’t talk about it. Their original sin.  
  
————————————  
  
Steve caught him staring at the open minibar and closed it with a solid thump.   
  
“You can’t stop me,” Tony said thickly. Exhaustion had worn him thin leaving only caffeine to prop him up like a marionette.  
  
“I absolutely can.”  
  
Tony snarled without making a sound and shoved Steve away from the bar. His usually nimble fingers struggled for a moment before the bottle opened and the scent of cheap vodka flooded the air. Tony eyed him deliberately before swallowing a mouthful without tasting.  
  
Steve stared at the nameless motel art instead, letting the ache settle into the pit of his stomach. This was what it was like to be trapped in the labyrinth with the Minotaur and not know the way out. There might not be one.   
  
“I thought you said you’d stop me,” Tony complained bitterly.  
  
“I can stop you. I won’t.” Steve was tired of being the immovable object. “It’s your choice.”   
  
Tony sneered but desperation bubbled underneath. “Maybe I can’t be trusted with myself, ever think of that? Maybe you need to just decide for me. C’mon, Cap, all those times I decided for you? For _everyone_? You could teach me what it was like on the other side.“  
  
“You won’t turn me into your villain,” Steve said softly.   
  
“No, that’s never the way round it goes, is it?” Tony’s eyes glittered cruelly. “I play the part so much better than you.” He was too close now and Steve could feel the heat of his body. “You’re such a forgiving soul. What do I have to do to you before you finally get it? Erase your mind a third time?”  
  
Steve hated the mix of anger and pity that Tony could inspire as easy as breathing. “Stop.”  
  
“No.” He drained the vodka.  
  
“Please.” The plea just seemed to drive Tony onward as he grabbed a mini bottle of rum.  
  
“_Make me._” There was a desperate glint in his eye. ”I’d lose, you know I would.”  
  
Steve did know. He’d win and then he’d lose Tony forever. “I don’t know what you want from me.”  
  
“I _want_ a lot but I deserve a lot less. You’re nothing like him and I can’t figure out why. I’ve given you every excuse you need. I stood against you, I betrayed you, I told you _no_ and you’re still here. So what exactly do you want from _me?”_  
  
Steve met Tony’s wild eyes, his voice was barely a whisper. “I want you to be okay. However that happens.”  
  
There was a pause and then Tony threw the rum at the wall. It was too small to shatter. “Fuck, fuck, fuck…” He buried his head in his hands.  
  
There was silence as they drowned in their respective misery.  
  
“I’m sorry, for everything,” Tony said quietly. Then, “I need to call Doc Samson, don’t I?”  
  
“Someone should have called him as soon as you got back.”  
  
“Stephen tried. I said no and everyone was too busy trying to keep me alive across an interdimentional rift to argue. Can’t really fault their priorities.” Tony let out a deep exhale. “It was easier to keep it all inside when no one knew.”  
  
“When I didn’t know,” Steve corrected quietly.  
  
“Maybe,” Tony granted. “I’ll call Leonard when we get back to New York. I’ll try to limit the word vomit ’til then.”  
  
“I’d rather you talked to me than keep it to yourself.”  
  
Tony looked him dead in the eye. “No, you really, really don’t.”  
  
There had to be a reason Tony didn’t sleep through the night.  
  
———————————  
  
“Do you know what happened to their Peter?” Steve asked.  
  
There was a pause that could have meant anything.   
  
“No.”  
  
Let it never be said Steve wasn’t warned.  
  
———————————  
  
It all came undone. It had to.  
  
He’d carried it alone as far as he could.  
  
———————————

It was the silence that woke Steve. Tony’s footprints weren’t hard to track in the light dusting of snow and Steve found him standing in front of the large stone church. From inside the candlelight and dulcet tones of a service escaped. Tony seemed hypnotized, breath rising like smoke.  
  
Steve stood well back.  
  
“I was the Devil,” Tony whispered hoarsely. “I had come to destroy them all, wearing the skin of their most hated enemy. The Captain was their saviour. He’d sent the Usurper Stark down to Hell and caged the demon they sent back.”  
  
Steve suppressed a shudder. “You’re only human, Tony.”  
  
“I know.” Tony stared at the stained glass. “He knew it too. He didn’t hurt me, not really. His Stark had to deal with all the physical tortures, the Captain was bored of them by the time I came through. The bond was my punishment. He made it as tight and strong as he could. He could feel every bit of my distress like it was his own and he hated me so much it was worth it. He’d just look at me and it was like I was drowning inside my own head, in his contempt for me, his outrage. Every time he marked me he had to restrain himself from tearing out my throat.” Tony’s breath curled in the air. “And the bond made me want to please him anyway. How fucked up is that?”  
  
"Very." There was gravel in Steve’s throat. “It was never your choice.”  
  
“It was,” Tony said mildly. “The small punishments I could live with; half a day in the gag, three without food… My first escape resulted in one person from every house I passed to be drowned. He found me through the bond ninety-six hours later. They died for nothing.  
  
“The second time I was smarter about it so he boarded up the doors of the local tavern and set it on fire. He caught me when I showed up to try and help. Told me it was the only way I’d learn. He let them burn.” Tony’s mouth was set in a grim line. “There wasn’t a third time, I only had to be taught that particular lesson twice.”  
  
Steve wasn’t breathing. He was sure if he could he would scream.  
  
“The worst part of it was they all loved him. You’d think that regularly executing your own citizens would put a damper on hero worship, but it didn’t. It made perfect sense to them: every time I got out, bad things happened. Who were they going to believe, the war hero or the war criminal? No one believes the Devil’s innocent.” Tony shrugged. “And I’m not really. My crimes more or less align with Stark’s, not that the Captain had any way of knowing that. Karma’s a bitch.”  
  
Steve didn’t like where this was going. “You didn’t deserve it.”  
  
“I did. The others didn’t. Most died knowing exactly who to blame.” Tony’s gaze was glassy, fixed at a middle distance. “The only thing I ever did that hurt him was talk about Barnes. So I exaggerated, I lied. I made us best friends and lovers over your dead body. I knew just enough about Barnes to make it plausible.“ Tony’s breath was a slow rattle. “My punishment was watching. He found other-Tony’s apprentice and gave him a martyr’s death. I’m not religious, I never realized how long it took.”  
  
Tony stared at the cross mounted atop the stone church and Steve stopped breathing.  
  
“They put him in the courtyard facing my window. I hadn’t even met this kid and there he was, dying for me.” His eyes shone with unshed tears. “Is it worse if I watched or if I didn’t?” He looked at Steve like there could possibly be an answer to that question. “I’m not going to let that happen here. I can’t watch it again. I won’t. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t - ”  
  
Tony broke, a gasping, choking exorcism of tears and pain, and Steve didn’t know where the poison ended and blood began. The church bells rang and Midnight Mass poured out the doors, parishioners parting around them like water.  
  
Steve held on tight and didn’t dare pray.  
  
—————————————  
  
They slept in the same bed from then on.   
  
Now Steve was the one who couldn’t sleep.  
  
—————————————  
  
(Tony would lose.  
  
A bite, a bond, a whisper in the right ear.  
  
If Captain America said it was Right who would oppose him?  
  
No one believes Tony Stark’s innocent.)  
  
——————————————  
  
“Tell me he’s dead. Tell me he can’t hurt anyone ever again.“  
  
“He’s dead,” Tony replied simply. “Barnes and Logan didn’t stab him if that’s what you were hoping to hear. He was alive when we left.”  
  
“But he’s dead now?”  
  
Tony nearly smiled. “That’s the joke: biology doesn’t care about feelings. The Captain was as bonded to me as I was to him and when I left he didn’t have any foetal tissue to ease him through the shock.” There was the curl of a lip. “I killed him. He died of a broken heart.”  
  
The paper cup crumpled in Steve’s hands. “Serves him right.”  
  
“A-_fucking_-men.”  
  
———————————————  
  
Rock salt crunched under their tires as they approached the city in bumper-to-bumper traffic. It was snowing but the white flakes were swallowed by asphalt. The Mansion fared no better; icicles hanging like daggers, footprints tracking dirt in worn paths. It was beautiful in the way only reality could be: in the eye of the beholder who knew it as Home.  
  
Tony stepped out of the car. His spine straightened, his smile returned, the invisible armour assembling around him, piece by piece. Steve envied it. His hands flexed on the steering wheel. The cold that crept in felt deserved.  
  
Then Tony rapped on his window. “C’mon Cap, it’s warm inside.”  
  
————————————  
  
There was one more thing Steve had to do.  
  
He had expected the lab to be deserted. It wasn't. Bucky was busy checking his knives, Logan was replacing his cowl, Bruce, Strange and Richards were working fast and silently. All of them turned when Steve entered.  
  
“What’s going on here?”  
  
“Clean-up,” Bucky said without pausing.  
  
Logan unsheathed his claws. “You don’t wanna be part of this, Cap.” They both disappeared through the veil.

Steve surveyed the crowded whiteboards, the running clocks, and came to the one conclusion he could. “How long has this been going on?”  
  
Bruce twitched. “Since we found out what happened. On and off.”  
  
This was why Logan hung around the Mansion, what Bruce had been doing on his hiatus, and why Reed seemed to live here now.  
  
“You can’t do this,” Steve said because he had to. Avengers didn’t avenge, not in the way that sent assassins after peasants.  
  
“We can,” Strange clarified. “We have been.”  
  
“On whose authority? Who gave you the right to decide - ” Steve choked over his own words. “I _know_, alright. I know how you feel but nothing you do now will undo what happened to him.”   
  
Reed blinked owlishly. “Tony.”  
  
“What?“  
  
"You asked who gave us the authority to do this. Tony did," Bruce said, arms crossed. "His only rule was that you never find out. He knew you’d disapprove.”   
  
Steve’s heartbeat stuttered and he found himself the target of stares filled with varying degrees of wariness and pity. Advocating mercy was easy in the abstract. It was harder knowing what he knew, knowing he’d have to meet Tony’s eyes tomorrow.  
  
“Why did you come down here, Steven?” Strange asked.

“I had to know for sure.” Steve held out his hand to the shimmering portal. He took three steps through the veil and instead of the lurching nausea of being spit back out into the lab there was a cool breeze and the tingle of electricity against his skin.  
  
He opened his eyes to a red sky, sunlight filtering through the atmosphere, lighting it on fire. There were two sets of footprints in the sand leading toward the horizon. The air smelled damp, like peat and decay.  
  
Steve didn’t stay long, he had his answer.  
  
The Captain was dead.  
  
————————————  
  
“I’m not sorry,” were Tony’s first words when Steve returned.  
  
Steve was supposed to say that revenge was futile. He was supposed to yell about missions run behind his back and Tony keeping secrets. This was how they always fell apart. If Steve played his cards right they could splinter and take the Avengers down with them, split everyone right down the middle again.  
  
Instead Steve buried his face in Tony’s hair and inhaled the sharp, whole scent of him.  
  
Tony trembled. “If it’s not this, it’ll be something else.”  
  
“Let it be something else.”  
  
———————————  
  
“I invited Peter over. You can avoid him if you like. I hope you don’t.”  
  
————————————  
  
The bite on Tony’s throat scarred white, just another war wound in the life of an Avenger. His hands were blistered from the workshop, callouses yet to form. There was a bandage on the inside of his left elbow where Stephen still took blood tests. The suppressants in his system were so strong the scent leaked out his pores.  
  
Iron Man rejoined the Avengers, so did Bruce, so did Bucky. Logan and Reed went home. Clint won three hundred dollars on _aqueducts_. (Rhodey couldn’t believe it.)  
  
Peter handed Tony a wrench and Steve smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Warnings_: All of them. Past and/or graphic depictions of: rape, abuse, torture, executions, character death, religious themes/appropriation, PTSD symptoms, and abortion.
> 
> This was an experiment with tropes I could never really get behind, mainly: omegaverse, fluffy Medieval AUs, we-were-married-in-a-different-universe, pregnancy-fic, and soulmate-bonding. I wrote this because any one of those could go horribly wrong so they all went wrong. Really, really wrong.
> 
> I'm not particularly happy with it but it needs to be done now. It was an exercise in writing an atypical reaction to trauma and I think it works as that. Do not take anything in this story as instructions on how to navigate a similar real-life scenario. Neither Tony nor Steve handle the situation well. Also, I'm sorry about what I did to Peter.


End file.
